Not Brand Echh #13 - The Final Issue!

 Dear Marble Gang, 

    While not as strong an issue as last, this was still a pretty good entertainment for a quarter. It was nice to see some new talent in the ranks of the NBE squadron and hopefully we'll see more of them going forward. "Mirthful" Marie Severin's cover is not as stunning as many recent ones, but just as funny if not funnier. She never fails to deliver. 

    "Dr. Deranged vs. Deadpan" by "Rascally" Roy Thomas, "Genial" Gene Colan, and newcome "Slaming" Sammy Grainger" was the highlight of the issue for me. I love Gene's work on the new Dr. Strange and love the new costume. Nice to see that look get a parody this time out and just as awesome was Deadman by Neal Adams. That these two mystical types might meet is a supernatural must and I'm glad that NBE found a way. 

    "The Origin of the Simple Surfer" by Roy and Marie gets my nod as second best feature this issue. The blow by blow parody of Stan "The Man" Lee's and "Big' John Buscema's debut issue of The Silver Surfer showcasing his origin was totally on point. Great work to everyone involved in the original and the spoof. "Galacticus" never looked so cheesy. 

    "The Return of Forbush Man" gets the third-place showing in this run and Roy and "Terrific" Tom Sutton do great work capturing the nuttiness of Irving Forbush's existence as well as knocking off a pretty lean spoof of Silver Surfer #5. It was tragic in its own hilarous way. 

    The fourth spot is taken by "Guess What's Coming to Dinner!" by "Stunning" Stu Schwartzberg, a new name and one well represented this issue. The artwork was a bit tamer than usual but Tom Sutton's inks helped keep it focused. The last page is a gas, though it requires a strong understanding of Marvel lore. 

    "Cheap Shrills" in the "Golden Wreckord Dept" by "Groovy" Gary Friedrich and "Hapless" Herb Trimpe was dynamite and makes laugh every time if glance at it. 

    'Who Says A Carnival Has to Be Good?" by Arnold Drake and Marie was a two-page winner with a host of gags filling up the colorful pages. Nifty jokes all. Close on its heels and in a tie for the fifth spot overall was "Rent-a-Super-Hero" by Marie and Stu. 

    Great art by Ronn Foss on "Valentines" and some pretty good gags Roy. Likewise Bill DuBay supplied some tasty illustrations for "Adult Super-Hero Daydreams". Tom Sutton was on hand again I see to keep things tight. "Liltin' Limericks" by Roy and Phil Seuling tops the bottom rung but still made me laugh, so good overall gents and lady. 

    As for Sue Richard's sizzling pin-up, the less said the better. I don't want Reed coming looking for me. Va-va-voom though for sure. (What do you mean you can't see her? She's right there.)

    You've survived to unlucky thirteen and hopefully no bad luck will befall Not Brand Echh from here on out. Long live NBE!

                                                                                                                       Sincerely (Not)

                                                                                                                       Rip Jagger

Notes and Comments: Sadly this was the last issue of Not Brand Echh for forty years, until at long last a fourteenth issue was published only a few years ago. Happily that issue focused on Forbush Man but the Marvel Universe it mocked was one I'd long ago abandoned and the jokes fell flat. This thirteenth issue of NBE does point the way forward to what the comic might've become in its own time as Roy had solicited his fanzine friends and colleagues to work on the book. Ronn Foss is widely considered the best talent in the fan ranks never to successfully break into the pros and this effort here is just a taste of what he might've done. Bill DuBay did go onto a darn good career, mostly at Warren as an editor and sometimes artist. Phil Seuling is most famous now for his comic book conventions. Of the talents only Sam Grainger went on to be a regular at Marvel, doing some little penciling but mostly inking in a magnificent style for several years and becoming one of my favorites. It's a peculiarity that NBE has effectively two Silver Surfer spoofs in this one issue and I cannot imagine that was some grand plan. Silver Surfer was along with NBE the only other quarter book for Marvel at the time (apart from annuals) and while NBE was cancelled the Surfer book slipped down to normal pricing and normal size and survived for a few more measly months. NBE was a nifty experiment that started strong with top-flight talent but by its end was buttressed by the twin talents of Marie Severin and Tom Sutton with newbies being brought into the game to sustain it. I'd loved to have been able to see what it became. 

Here are some covers, comic and otherwise which inspired the features this issue. 

Rip Off

Giant Labors Of Love!

Fanzines of any era are "labors of love" produced by fans who want desperately to express themselves about a hobby they love or in some measure to participate in the production of the works that make up that hobby. In the case of comics, there were scores of low-print fanzines manufactured cheaply  which were distributed to only a few hundred fellow fans at most. Fanzines of this type were well served by the antique production process of ditto or spirit duplication. 

"Ditto" copying was a standard technique for cheap duplication of documents in many smaller outfits like churches and schools and such since its invention in the 1920's. It was once standard practice to see purple-tipped fingers on many folks who made use of the process. When I first started my teaching career Ditto was still a regular way to make sufficient copies of teaching materials for distribution to students in a classroom. I've administered more than a few tests committed to the spirit duplication format. And as it turns out I used the process  when I briefly took part in comic fanzine publication in the late 70's long after most publications had switched to offset printing. I had access to that too, but much of the work developed by members of my APA (Amateur Press Association) came to me via Ditto masters. Learning to use Ditto and even to draw on it took practice and there were even some slight advantages at the time because of certain shading effects common to the technique. The smells of Spirit Duplication were distinctive and not necessarily unpleasant.  

That's the method used by all of the stories collected in Bill Schelly's Giant Labors of Love. I'm taking a look at the "Revised and Expanded Edition" released in 2000. It's the smallest of the collections Schelly published under his Hamster Press brand both in page count (112 pages) and overall dimensions (7 inches by just under 10 inches). There are ten stories and many examples of small spot art work. 

The collection leads off with not one but two stories starring the most visually iconic of the fanzine heroes -- Bijo White's The Eye. White was adept at using the Ditto process to get effective art and it shows her with two stories that first introduce the enigmatic underworld  hitman and then a second which reveals his true heroic nature. This is followed by Richard "Grass" Green's Speed Marvel a light hearted funny strip that has a hero who gets the job done and has a laugh at the same time. The art here evoked those fantastic Terrytoons character styles. 

Next up is Dimension Man by Ronn Foss and of particular note in this story is the lovely dame rendered by Foss, a fetching chick from Venus where women rule and men serve. Foss seems to be okay with that idea, forward thinking for the 60's when "feminism" was just aborning. 

The Demon by Buddy Saunders (one of the "Texas Trio") a strip in which this magical powered hero is assisted by another superhero who doesn't survive the adventure. Death and dying are all too commonplace in comics today, but to kill any character in the 60's was a huge deal. Doc Darkness by Rick  Buckler is next and this is a complete story with this Doctor Mid-Nite knockoff battling some particularly nasty villains who want to use religion to shield themselves from justice. The O'Brian Gang is by Bill Schelly himself from 1972 and in his into he indicates there is some Fourth World influence on this story. That influence is mostly seen in the face and manners of the matriarch of the gang who looks more than bit like Granny Goodness. This is a wild fracas that actually draws you in quite effectively. 

Now we turn to the "Expanded" part of the book and we kick off with The Black Scorpion, a female hero by Larry Herndon. This is followed by The Defender by Herndon and Green with inks by Howard Keltner. Both Herndon and Keltner were the other two members of the "Texas Trio" alongside Saunders. 

The Viper by Ronn Foss is almost certainly the best drawn piece in the book featuring another heroine who this time uses a great costume and a whip made from snake skin to enforce her will on a devious criminal. The book wraps up with yet another Biljo White item starring The Lion, a hero who comes into being to help save a lowly pressman's job after he conjures up the hero out of nothing. The Lion's debut is novel for certain. 

These are not the most refined examples of comic art, even among the fanzine variety but they are filled with that furious enthusiasm which makes these kinds of collections so much fun to explore. 

Rip Off

The Day Of The Eclipse!

I've been having a lot of fun this week reading fanzine heroes in collections from Hamster Press. A number of the heroes I've been revisiting have been featured here before (The Eye, Dr.Weird, Xal-Kor the Human Cat) but not The Eclipse.

The Eclipse was created by Drury Moroz and Ronn Foss. Foss is probably the greatest of the fan artists, by all accounts a fun-loving and agreeable fellow. The photos of him I've seen suggest nothing less. The Eclipse was supposed to have been a revival of the DC hero Dr.Mid-Nite, at the time in absentia like most all of DC's Golden Age heroes. But DC editor Julius Schwartz nixed the idea, and so was born the arguably more interesting character The Eclipse.



Like Dr.Mid-Nite, Dr.Craig Pierce is blind hero. But in an origin story that reminded me for all the world of Darkman, he survives an explosion in his lab and is not only blinded but affected by a disease that makes him sensitive to sunlight. Unexpectedly though the chemicals in the lab (The Flash) have given him powers to compensate, and he can now see in the dark and in shadow can even move through solid objects. Arming himself with a costume that changes into street clothes (The Creeper) and a raygun that shoots beams of blackness he charges out to capture the villains who killed his assistant and left him for dead. He succeeds of course. The origin story ends with the arrival of Teresa Aster, a nurse who is dedicated to helping the stricken doctor much to his chagrin.

It's a great rousing origin story, and it appeared in Alter Ego #5 under a fantastic cover that shows the lithe form of the Eclipse and the deft hand of Foss. I've read two more Eclipse adventures, one that ran in Alter Ego #8 and involves the hero and his "assistant" in a haunted castle and some old-fashioned thieves. A third story appeared many years later in Comics Crusader Storybook, and has The Eclipse battling high-tech villains who have injured Teresa during a robbery. This Eclipse as written by Marty Griem seems a bit more hard-bitten and the artwork on this story was by Ron Fortier with inking by Foss.

I really like this character. He's a sleek and intersting hero with a neat blend of abilities and limits. He's got a most handsome outfit, and the best part is the great Kubert-inspired artwork by Foss, who shows a completely confident hand rendering these adventures. Great stuff.

I read these adventures on in their original, but in reprint form in Fandom's Finest Comics Vols. 1 & 2 and Alter Ego The Best of Legendary Comics Fanzine from Hamster Press.